“You and your necromancer stay with the people, Son,” he shouted, and the sneer that curled his lip was audible in his voice.
“Your king will return and tell you when it is safe to proceed.” Accompanied by his soldiers, he walked out of the tunnel. If only . . .
Dragons possess remarkable intelligence. One is tempted to say Malevolent intelligence, but, in fairness, who are we to judge a creature our ancestors hunted almost to extinction? I have no doubt that, if the dragons could or would speak to us, they would remind us that they have good cause to hate us.
Not that this makes it any easier.
“I should have gone with him!” were the first words Edmund spoke to me, when I gently tried to remove his arms from around his father’s broken, bleeding body. “I should have been at his side!”
If, at any moment in my life, I was ever tempted to believe that there might be an immortal plan, a higher power…. But no. To all my other faults, I will not add blasphemy!
As his father had commanded him, Edmund stayed behind. He stood tall, dignified, his face impassive. But I, who know him so well, understood that what he longed to do was run after his father. He wanted to explain, to try to make his father understand. If only Edmund had done so, perhaps the old king might have relented and apologized. Perhaps the tragedy would never have occurred.
Edmund is, as I have said, young and proud. He was angry— justifiably so. He had been insulted in front of all the people. He had not been in the wrong. He would not make the first move toward reconciliation. His body trembled with the force of his inheld rage. He stared out the tunnel, said no word. No one said anything. We waited in silence for what seemed to me to be an interminable length of time.
What was wrong? They could have circumnavigated the lake by now, I was thinking to myself, when the scream resounded down the runnel, echoed horribly off the cavern walls.
All of us recognized the voice of the king. I… and his son .. -recognized it as a warning, recognized it as his death cry.
The scream was awful, first choked with terror, then agonized, bubbling with pain. It went on and on, and its dreadful echo reverberated from the rock walls, screamed death to us over and over.
I have never in my life heard anything to equal it. I hope I never hear anything like it again. The scream might have turned the people to stone, as does, purportedly, the look of the legendary basilisk. I know that I stood frozen to the spot, my limbs paralyzed, my mind in little better condition.
The scream jolted Edmund to action.
“Father!” he shouted, and all the love that he had longed for during all the years of his life was in that cry. And, just as in his life, his cry went unanswered.
The prince ran forward, alone.
I heard the clattering of weapons and the confused sounds of battle and, above that, a dreadful roaring. I could now give a name to my fear. I knew now what the runes on the map meant.
The sight of Edmund rushing to meet the same fate as his father impelled me, at last, to act. Swiftly, with what remaining strength I had left, I wove a magical spell, like the nets in which we’d caught the fish across the tunnel exit. Edmund saw it, tried to ignore it. He crashed full-force into it, fought and struggled against it. Drawing his sword, he attempted to cut his way through.
My magic, its power heightened by my fear for him, was strong. He couldn’t get out, nor could the fire dragon — on the other side — break through the net.
At least, I hoped it couldn’t. I have studied what the ancients wrote about such creatures, and it is my belief that they underestimated the dragon’s intelligence. To be safe, I ordered the people to retreat farther back down the tunnel, telling them to hide in whatever passages they could find. They fled like scared mice, council members and all, and soon no one was left in the front part of the cavern but myself and Edmund.